Welcome One and All to the GhostOfClayton extremely occasional blog. Are you all sitting comfortably? Then I shall begin.

I know that, looking at me, you wouldn�t think it, but I�m not a drinker. Not absolutely tee total, but only drink socially and very occasionally. So, on Saturday night, after a very small amount of beer, I found myself quite tipsy. Myself and Mrs OfClayton had been invited round by the brother and sister out-law to watch the opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympic Games. Did you see it, dear reader? I�m sorry, but I can�t really describe it in detail in these pages, so I shall write as if you did.

I saw the sheep on Glastonbury Tor, and got as far as recognising the man in the stovepipe hat as Isembard Kingdom Brunnel, before a combination of the alcohol in my bloodstream and the fact that I�m a ham-fisted, clumsy oaf, caused me to spill my beer all over their settee, blinds, carpet, furniture, many children, etc. There was a sort of time-stood-still moment whilst I tried desperately to stop myself shouting �Ger-Granville . . .Fer-fetch a cloth�, before the panicked reaction of all present moving stuff that had yet to be dripped on, away from beneath things that had already been dripped on, fer-fetching cloths and kitchen rolls, (and indeed anything deemed absorbent and washable/disposable) and generally trying to help. It�s amazing how far you can spread half a pint of Old Peculiar, and bewildering how many tiny nooks and crannies are owned by the OfClayton Out-Laws. And just how cubic centimetres of beer can settle into a nook/crannie that is physically too small to accept the edge of a sheet of kitchen roll.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, by the time normality had been restored, the industrial revolution had been and gone, and Bevan was just about to launch the National Health Service. So. What did you all think to the 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony? I can see that much of it would go over the heads of non-Brits. Why on earth would a significant portion of the ceremony be devoted our National Health Service? Did the Nation�s Sovereign really appear in a comedy sketch? The answer to the second is simply �Yes� (surely we�ve seen it all, now!). The answer to the first is more complex, and highlights the strange relationship we have with our primary care provider. Most see it as a sort of errant sibling. We argue amongst ourselves about its shortcomings, belittle it, tell each other how hopeless it is, etc., etc. But woe betide any outsider who tries to do the same. It�s our NHS, and as far as Johnny Foreigner is concerned, it�s the best in the world, and we�re justifiably proud to have it. Either that, or it was because Danny Boyle�s a bit of a leftie.

But for most Brits I�ve talked to, it was a triumph. True, although it had spectacle aplenty, it didn�t have as much as Beijing. Mr Boyle would have been mad to pit himself against the weight of the People�s Republic in that respect, and Mr Cameron would have been mad (and extremely unlikely) to fund the attempt. It was never going to happen. But what it lacked in spectacle (not much in my, and many others�, humble opinion), it more than made up for in sheer exuberance and bare-faced quirkiness. Not only with the acting debut of our dear Queen, whose popularity rating must surely have sky-rocketed as a result, but Rowan Atkinson re-imagining the beach race scene from Chariots of Fire. And did Mr Boyle hand the ultimate accolade of the evening to one of our national sporting heroes? No, he made you think it would be Sir Steve Redgrave lighting the Olympic flame, but the honour went jointly to seven young, and hitherto unknown athletes on whose shoulders our country is pinning its future medal hopes. What a coup.

Anyway, I'm off to the Netherlands for a while now, by way of escaping the olympic blanket coverage.

Ciao for now.